Semiconductor device fabrication involves the processing of semiconductor wafers in a semiconductor processing reactor. Typical processes involve deposition and removal (i.e., etching) of material on the wafer. In commercial scale manufacturing, each wafer contains many copies of a particular semiconductor device being manufactured, and many wafers are required to achieve the required volumes of devices. The commercial viability of a semiconductor processing operation depends in large part upon within-wafer uniformity and wafer-to-wafer repeatability of the process conditions. Accordingly, efforts are made to ensure that each portion of a given wafer and each wafer processed are exposed to the same processing conditions. Variation in the processing conditions usually causes variation in deposition and etch rates resulting in unacceptable variation in the overall process and product.
Techniques and apparatus to minimize process variation are required.